Monday, August 11, 2008

August 11, 2008~Kate Winslet?

This week was a little more intense than usual.. here we go..

so monday we had a meeting with my man Adil. We have been trying to get him to church and give him his Arabic book of mormon for like a month. He finally called us up and set up with us. We had a meeting with him in centrum. We gave him the book and then talked about the nature of God and religion in the world for a half hour. He is a way smart guy. He doesnt believe in a personal God.. he is one of those.. God is everywhere and nowhere kind of guys. Which reminds me .. we did a whiteboard yesterday and we put up the question ..."what does God look like?" we had people come up and draw him.. haha it was way funny... i drew a J.W. God with a brief case and holding the New World Translation.. some JW'S got mad.. came up and started bashing. i won. Anywho... umm Adil told us that he has every intention of reading the book of Mormon all the way through and he told us that when he gets done with it he is going to have enough questions to make our heads hurt ...so that rocks. We are hopeful he will feel something while he reads it. Oh he's from Sudan? .. Sedan? . somewhere in Africa..

Then i went on exchanges with Gonzalves with DL.. i served with him up in Gdansk... it was a way fun day.. it started downpouring half way through the day so we went tracting for the first time in like 6 months... second door we knock on the door opens and this lady opens the door. Imagine ..ok.. remember Kate Winslet in Titanic.. remember what she looked like when she was 90.. tossing the heart gem thingy into the ocean "oH!" ... that was this lady. polish version. We tell her a little about what we are doing and she welcomes us right in. We sat down and she offered us some fruit tea right off the bat which i was pretty sure it was alcoholic from the way it smelled.. it smelled just like every larry i had ever met. Gonzo downed it, loved it. So we are all just chilling there staring at each other for a sec and she starts telling us about her life... her two kids in the states. How lonely she is, how old she is. And then she stops.. "ok, well.. pray or something.. do what you do." .. gonzo and i look at each other .. ummm..so i did what ive been trained to do... i started teaching a first. Gonzo followed. We ask her some questions.. we got to talking about Prophets and she stops us.. "that is really great, interesting.. do you have any prayers?" ... gonzo looks at me.. he starts explaining to her a little about prayers.. then he asks me to say a prayer. So i say one, bless her and her family. After the prayer is over she just replies "that was pretty, very nice" .. then she's like "wait one second...." she walks into the other room.. me and gonz are just kinda like.. this is strange. She comes back with this way thick book of Cathloic prayers "ahh, this is the good stuff" .. she opens up to a page and starts throwing down a prayer for us.. 15 mintues later.. she finally stops.. looks up with this smile, half her teeth missing... "beautiful, no?" .."oh yeahh, for sure, very beautiful." ... she leaves the room again.. "gonzo, i think the tea is alcoholic man" .."no way, for real" .. "yep, i think so." she comes back... gonzo politely asks her whats in the tea.. "any alcohol?" ... "no, do you want some?" haha it was a way funny experience... she was a nice enough lady... she told us we could come back anytime to practice our Polish..

we had a meeting with Piotr..he started telling us about taxes again... i threw down on him a little bit.. I told him exactly what our purpose is as missionaries.. we're here to teach people the Gospel.. he got a little defensive but finally understood where we were coming from. We had planned to try and teach a whole first to him but instead felt prompted to start teaching the Plan of Salvation. he got way into it and we got through about half of it in an hour.. we committed him to try and find time to read the Bom.. he said he'd try. So he still wasnt progressing as of Wednesday... But on Sunday he came to church! Yeahhhs.. and President Engbjerg was there so he got to meet him and talk with him a little bit it was way good.. As we are sitting there in sacrament meeting he pulls out his Book of Mormon and he had sections highlighted .. he told me he started reading it from the begninning and said he had a lot of questions for our next meeting.. woot! that made my week, my life. During sacrament meeting the two topics spoken on (faith and the Word of Wisdom) .. were absolutely perfect for him.. except for the W.O.W talk was given by this black member from Zimbabwe, Brat Dennis.. oh man.. he started talking about the history of Coca Cola.. and illogically reasoned that coke is not permitted in the WOW.. then he started talking about how as members of the church we need to have more than one child.. oh it was a train wreck.. funniest talk ever, but for Piotr's first time in sacrament meeting it was bad. He kept giving me looks like.. for real? haha oh golly day.. our Branch President got up after the talk and set the record straight on what exactly the Word of Wisdom entails..

that was my week! thanks for the email loving.. have a wonderful week .. love you all!!